Women only trans inclusive This is an inclusive community for all things women. Whether you're here for make up tips, feminism or just friendly chit chat, we've got you covered.
Rules…
That it is less important then men's health.
That it is similar enough to men's health that studies can focus on men first and maybe deal with women as an afterthought.
That it is so different from men's health that it might as well be an alien species we're talking about.
That it is somehow "dirty" or "icky".
That's an excellent point, research is typically done on straight white men.
That fat is the devil. No, don't have loads, but a bit isn't an issue
Yeah, fatphobia is rife, as are armchair doctors who know nothing and yet claim to in order to shame others and feel better about themselves.
Fat is much worse for men, but you don't see anyone fat shaming them.
Yes you do. Men are not immune from fat shaming.
Immune, no. But an average woman puts on 5kg and they're talked about as if they're suddenly the fattest thing that ever fatted. Man puts on a proportional amount and ... silence. Men have to start flirting with actual obesity to start getting the shit women get if they gain 10%.
Example from my life: there's a Canadian TV show I kind of thought was nifty called Lost Girl. It starred Anna Silk as Bo, a succubus who didn't know about the supernatural world she was part of until early in the series. Even in the earlier seasons of the show (1 and 2) there was some rumbling—mostly from men—about how she was a bit "broad in the beam". Come season 3, however, even men I liked and, more importantly, some very catty women, were talking about how she'd "pudged up" starting from the very first episode.
Even "worse" she visibly gained weight (and a lot of it!) as the season progressed.
Because, you see, Anna Silk was pregnant in season 3. The production team worked around her visible-weight-gain-for-obvious-reasons to keep the show on the air. But there were actually men in some of my circles saying the show should have taken a season-long hiatus so that Anna wouldn't look fat.
I can't think of any lead male actor who'd gained the little bit of body weight Anna had gained at the beginning of season 3 who took the shit she took.
Coincidentally, I was recently trying to remember which show starred a succubus, so thanks for referencing that!
I love Marvel, but they've done their share of fat shaming men. Chris Hemsworth wore a fat suit for Endgame and wasn't even that big, but took a lot of guff. Chris Pratt as Peter Quill got told he was "one sandwich away from fat." I'm not arguing that men always get fat-shamed in the same way or to the same degree as women, but they absolutely get it, and I think it's unfair to the men who are respectfully abiding by the rules and not commenting here to insinuate (or actually directly state) that they don't experience this. Also unfair to the women who love them and have to watch as they experience this pain.
Just for context, I am not the one downvoting these comments.
Oh, absolutely men do get fat-shamed. It's just that there's no comparison across the male/female divide. A man gains 5kg and he's got a "dad bod". A woman gains 5kg and she's held to hard criticism by men and women both. It's actually kind of horrific.
That being said, post-COVID, around October '22 or so, my own reaction to the intense distress and, frankly, utter terror of living through the world's largest and most comprehensive quarantine in all of history had me eating a whole lot to settle my nerves. I did put on weight (and not only 5kg...) and I'm actually very happy that one of my former students who saw me suggested I come to the gym he owned and start working out. So sometimes commenting on someone's weight is a good thing. It's all in how it's presented and the attitude that's paired with it. (Oh and who does the commenting. Random Internet losers can DIAF.)
Now I'm back to where I was before (still considered "heavy" by those idiot BMI charts) but I'm far healthier and stronger for it.
That women can't be strong.
On its face this is silly, women's peak lifts might not be as high as men but they can lift really fucking heavy things if they train.
But if you dig deeper this actually has to do with how we measure strength. What is true is that men can lift a larger amount of weight in a single lift, but what this misses is that women can have more endurance and can lift as much (if not more) weight cumulatively over the course of a day in the gym. Estrogen and progesterone play important roles in muscle development, it's not just testosterone.
Ask yourself which is stronger: lifting 800 lbs once and then being wiped out, or lifting 450 lbs twice before being wiped out?
After a year of weight training despite not having visibly bulked up (because the bulky muscles are the weaker fast-twitch muscles, not the strong and enduring slow-twitch) my SO got very ... ah ... flummoxed, shall we call it? ... when I was able to squat him. Or, you know, throw him off of me with just a hip thrust. 🤣
That woman with the same height and weight have similar body types.
Like my sister in Christ do you not know that bone, muscle and fat density is a range and that there are 300+lbs women who are rail thin and 90lbs women who have the figure of the stay-puff marshmallow man at the same height.
Bullshit there are 300 lb women that are rail thin. Got an example.
Well one needs only look at body builders like Nataliya Kuznetsova to realize that things other than fat imbues weight.
Rail thin in no way prevents women from having muscles; unless you want someone looking like Lesley Hornby.
Is this meant to be hyperbole? If not, can you provide examples? It seems wildly inaccurate to me.
You mean can I point out women like Nataliya Kuznetsova and the genetic mutations that can double or half your bone/muscle/fat density? Because there are hundreds of them.
A 4x density range exists for humans if you include the extremes. A 1.4x density range if you want to limit yourself to 96% of the population
I guess we have a different definition of rail-thin, because I would not use it to describe anyone with bulging muscles. I also have trouble envisioning a 90-lb stay-puft woman of the same height.
Fair enough, everyone imagines differently.
Imagine someone with low muscle mass and fragile bones; (likely chronically condemned to be stuck in hospital beds) thus more than half their body weight would be fat. You might only find them in medical journals as case studies for rare diseases but they do exist.
Muscle is denser than fat. You can easily replace body fat with equivalent volume of muscle and suddenly come out denser (by quite a bit even). If the muscle you're building is the non-bulky slow twitch variety, it won't even be visible to casual inspection underneath that little layer of remaining fat you're going to have left.
Oh look. Here come some men telling women how women's health works too! Mustn't deprive the world of that oh-so-rare, oh-so-valuable male perspective, must we?
That we smell bad "down there". so many really stupid jokes about it, and if anything that smell comes from the men more than it does the woman
Cervix doesn't feel pain so no need for any medicine when getting an implant! Cool I'll stick to the depo shot instead cause fuck that.
I was on the depo shot for 10+ years and they* said I couldn't anymore because it causes bone density loss if you're on it too long.
Edit: *my gyno
But what am I supposed to tell the hentai industry?